Conviction(96)

Conner leans down and pulls Marcus up by his tie, pressing their foreheads together.

“Games up you slippery little cunt. We know what you’ve done. We know everything. Now you’re going to prison while I skip off into the sunset with your wife to raise our baby. Together.” He turns and looks at me, his eyes a steely grey despite the smile on his face.

“And you know why I’m gonna do that?” Marcus blinks but doesn’t answer. “Because I’m Conner f*cking Reed and I can.”

He then head butts Marcus, right between the eyes. I don’t even wince when I hear bones crunch and watch blood spray everywhere. Conner stands and holds his hand out to me.

“Meebs.”

I step toward him and take his hand, but as I step over my husband, who’s still lying in the bedroom doorway, I can’t resist affording Marcus the same favour he bestowed upon Sophie and I a couple of months ago and I spit, right beside his head.

I hear Conner chuckle from beside me.

“Is that it, Meebs? After everything he’s done to you, to us, that all you got?”

Knowing what will hurt Marcus more than anything else, I turn to Conner, wrap my arms around his neck and say, “I love you, baby, let’s go home and f*ck.” Just as the sirens sound outside.





The next few hours are a blur. Despite his injuries, Marcus is arrested and we are also escorted by the police to the station. We take the paperwork regarding Marcus’s vasectomy with us. On the way, Conner explains that he’s had a private detective watching both Marcus and my brother for the past couple of weeks.

It’s taken a bit longer to gather the evidence that Conner was after. Originally, he just wanted something to bargain with, to force Marcus into signing the divorce papers, but with what’s been uncovered, we want charges pressed.

After giving our statements regarding how I went to my old home to collect my passport and Marcus attempted to attack me and Conner stepping in to save me, we’re released.

Marcus paid someone to attack me and over the next few days, we discover that he was convinced that if I thought it was fans of Conner’s that had attacked me, I wouldn’t feel safe and would go running back to him instead. Me being pregnant, he thought would help his plans by convincing me that I needed to be with someone who could keep me safe.

He thought that by threatening me with a custody battle, I would fold and simply move back with him. He never planned on telling me about the vasectomy. If Conner ever asked for a paternity test in the future, he assumed that I would’ve fallen back in love with him and Conner would be out of my system.

And why the vasectomy? He couldn’t bear to share me. He hated the thought of me loving a child and not him.

Marcus was also behind going to the press with the news that Conner and I were together. He also fed them the story about the underage sex.

It had taken Tom a while to put everything together as Marcus was using two phones. Tom was only tracking his smartphone, unaware that he also had a cheap pre-pay from which he arranged to have me knocked about.

But it gets better. Turns out that the reason that Marcus had two phones in the first place was to hide his affair. The affair he was having with my brother’s wife.

My. Brothers. Wife.

They have a child together. My brother’s only child isn’t his, he belongs to Marcus.

Marcus has not only confessed all of this to the police, but he’s also sent me a long detailed letter explaining everything, assuming that by coming clean, I would forgive and go back to him.

I’m not sure if he’s suffering from some type of mental breakdown, but he is most definitely delusional, and I can’t help but feel just a little bit guilty. His life and his business are in pieces, along with my brother’s and my parents. But it’s the little boy involved that I feel the sorriest for. Henry’s not an attractive or likeable child, there’s nothing warm or loving about him and I know that in the past, he’s been bullied at school. I just hope all of this doesn’t affect him long term.

The scandal has been all over the newspapers and my mother has resigned from her ministerial post. If it wasn’t for the impact this is having on Henry’s life, I’d be happy because all of it has nothing to do with me. Not that that’ll stop her from blaming me. My family wanted nothing more than for me to marry Marcus and just look at what it’s achieved. My brother and mother have lost their jobs and Marcus is facing a conviction and will most likely be struck off.

Who would’ve thought that my boring husband could be leading such a double life? Not me.





I come into the kitchen wearing Conner’s Shift T-shirt, the one I wore the first night I stayed here.

I’ve been out of the hospital for just over two weeks and in that time we’ve only left the house once. We made a trip to Harley Street to meet the obstetrician Conner had arranged for me, and then to the solicitors to sign the final paperwork for the divorce that Marcus had finally agreed to.

I’m approximately nine weeks pregnant. Our baby was very probably conceived right here on this kitchen worktop, the first weekend we got together, which makes me feel kinda slutty but happy.

Conner has Ed Sheeran on shuffle over the loudspeakers, he sings along to ‘Photograph’ while boiling milk on the stove for me. I would normally just throw it in the microwave, but he’s banned me from using it. In fact, he’s gone as far as having it removed from the house.